Andy R wrote:
> 
> --- Linda Laubenheimer <ljl@rahul.net> wrote:
> > in less than a day, not the three+ it ended up
> > taking.  The compiling
> > alone took 36 hours, and I had to check it
> 
> 3 days? Wow. My Celeron 366 would do it faster than
> that (about 26 hours or so), and to be honest, that's
> about the lower end of CPU power to reasonably run the
> latest versions of KDE...

I had to uninstall and reinstall twice before I gave up and started 
compiling. Then the damn thing kept barfing on dependencies every 6 
hours or so.  The processor is an AMD K6 mkII 450, and a PC 100 
motherboard.

> > Aaagh!  Although watching stuff compile can be fun,
> > it is a real
> > problem when you are on a shared computer, and the
> > other person wants
> > to get their email...
> 
> There's a cool way around this. Normally you can just
> nohup it and send the output to a log and be on your
> merry way, but that doesn't always work every time if
> manual intervention becomes required. Check out VNC.
> You can run another X desktop in never never land and
> connect to it either locally or remotely (if security
> concerns allow) and you never have to worry about it
> getting stepped on, and it's a cool way to manage
> things for they way I do them.

If your other user can get their mail in a terminal window, 
that works.  But I didn't have netscape installed yet - it 
was waiting on KDE...

Also, you assume that there is more than one machine to 
play on...  This was my home system.

> > Amen.  They eat resources, take forever to compile,
> > and that's not
> > happy.
> 
> Again, there are other desktops that are quite
> functional that don't suck down too many resources
> (other than the Xserver that is which can be quite
> hungry). My current fave is xfce, but I also try out
> sapphire once in a while because it's pretty. VNC
> coupled with a lightweight desktop is a nice way to
> solve your above problem.

VNC?  Abbreviation doesn't connect tonight.

> > Yet I've had KDE installs that worked fine.  The
> > previous system that
> > I put it on didn't even twitch!
> 
> In my experience KDE is quite stable as well, and bug
> fixes happen quickly. Much easier for the average user
> to get around in than Gnome. Gnome remains too GPL
> geeky while KDE just goes about the business of making
> a functional desktop.

Which is why I hadn't even messed with Gnome.

> > My desire is for a windowing system that is a little
> > more attractive
> > and configurable than plain X.  I need to be able to
> > get users up and
> > running on it *fast*, and not get a lot of "how do
> 
> Again, there are quite a few cool desktops out there,
> and xfce works quite well in a rather small footprint.

I may have to check out xfce.

> But KDE will always be my preferred desktop.

I like it, when the thing works.  This is the first time ever 
that I've had problems with it, and it really ticked me off.

					Linda
-- 
Linda J Laubenheimer - UNIX Geek, Sysadmin, Bibliophile and Iconoclast
http://www.modusvarious.net/ - consultants available
http://www.laubenheimer.net/ - personal demo site
http://www.geocities.com/laubenheimer/ - web design gaffes (I wouldn't 
disgrace a real ISP with these) and rants about bad design.